3/31/14 | Happy Monday!

We had a great week! Our zone focus was invites to baptism; so at the beginning of the week, we were tying to figure out who we would invite. We made up a big list of people we could potentially invite but as the week went on, all of out investigators were canceling appointment and everything kept falling through. The zone leaders came to our district meeting and elder Bloomfield told us how they had been inviting people this week; they just walk up to people ask if they have ever done something they regret (of course most people do) then they ask if they would like to erase all of it and start over (again the answer is affirmative) then they just invite them to be baptized! Simple as that. So we wanted to start doing that as we tracked and street contacted, but we either chickened out or the conversation never allowed us to guide it to baptism without being completely awkward. By Sunday morning we only had 2 out of the 5 invites we were accountable for. That is no good, so around 3 pm we pulled out the area book and phone and started calling people and inviting them to be baptized! It was so cool! Sometimes when you are cold contacting, people feel like then have the upper hand or control of the situation (basically the right and ability to be rude or just shut the door in your face) but when you just break the ice with "Hey we are planning a baptismal service for May and wanted to know if you want to be baptized." It catches people off guard, and as they let that guard down, your foot just slides right in the door and wonderful Christ centered conversations blossom. 
After calls, we hit the pavement and went to find some people that didn't answer their phones, doing the same thing on the door step. We found that people are kinder and can really see that we truly are representatives of Jesus Christ because like we have been told countless times, the spirit will always speak with you when you invite people to baptism. Now, unfortunately, no one responded with a resounding "yes!" But we were able to weed through some who really have no interest in coming to Christ and we also laid the foundation for future missionaries who they will meet. Because one of the first things we asked them was to accept the invitation from our savior and be baptized, they know our purpose and they felt the spirit of The Lord testify with us. 
We ended up inviting 11 people to be baptized this week. Not that the number matters, but I do know that that 11 directly correlates with the strength of the spirit we had with us this week, I know it coordinates with the unity we have in our companionship and it helped both of us grow as we acknowledged the fear we had (of being so bold) and conquered it with courage.

There is a mormon message we have been sharing with many of the sisters that we visit lately, its called courage and it's about esther and some random women that have been through hard things (look it up for fhe!) and one of the woman says that being brave doesn't mean that don't have fears. The only thing we should give to our fears is acknowledgement, then move on and be brave! :) YEAH! And that's my pep talk for the week :) 

Oh my goodness, family! I cannot believe that you are going on a grand adventure without me!!!!!! And without Spanky and without Mikey!! How incredibly sillly of you! That's ok because me and spencer will just go backpacking in europe when he get's home :) You in spencer?? it will be really fun and we can eat all the nutella we can find! 

Today was a realllly fun pday! We just casually went and found a castle in doylestown. It was seriously the coolest thing ever!! ok so this man built it in 1900something and its made compleatly out of cement because he wanted a fire proof house. There is all this cool tile work covering the inside because he was a tile maker man. IT was so cool! you need to come see it! I guess on special occasions, he would go up to his 70 ft high tower and build bonfires cause he could :). This guy was a serious nutter. 

OH get this! We called Sister Menloves family on thursday night (president said we could) because her little brother Thomas got his mission call! He's going to Portland Oregon!! cool huh! I love her family they are soooooooo nice! 

It's supposed to get into the 60's this week :) that will be sooooo lovely!!! I can't even wait!  I love you family!! have a really really good week and have fun in Cancun I guess--send some heat my way if you can :) 

Love, Sister Bailey 

Sis. Menlove & Sis. Bailey

The Cement Castle

Alright, I just realized I haven't really told you alot about Morrisville. Its reallly lovely!!! It is literally right across the river from Trenton NJ, which is not in the mission so we get freaked out when we are driving on the roads that lead to bridges becasue leaving them mission is a really bad idea. Anyways, we were tracting by the Delaware river and snapped some pics of trenton, i think that shiny gold building is the capitol?? maybs. And don't worry, yes I have heard that Trenton is realll sketchy but Morrisville is really nice and safe and cozy :). I live in a place called Yardly for goodness sake, how much more quaint can it get?? and please ignore how fat I look in that pic....I'm wearing 2 big sweaters, a scarf and my coat....it was reall cold give me a break. anyways, LOVE YOU!!! oh and I guess we have geese control out here??...soooo manyyyy geese! 

 also the face is half because it is freezing and half because that's my "ehehkkekkashhaah! that's trenton new jersey!" face. 

3/24/14

I hope you all went and got your free rita's on the first day of spring. I love rita's!! oh my goodness next time you go, skip out on the wooter ice and just get the custard. It tastes like a pillow of ice cream! I'm going to start this letter off with the funniest thing that has ever happened to me in my entire life: Sister Menlove and I went for our morning run, it was still dark outside and it had rained pretty heavily the day before. There we are, just runnin runnin runnin and a bigggg old truck drives by us real quick, he hit a massive puddle when he passed us causing literally a 6 foot wave of water to consume us! We stopped dead in our tracks, immediately soaking wet. Then we started laughing soooo hard because who can say that actually happened to them!? I always thought that was just something that happened to people on movies. So after we gathered ourselves together, we decided to just go home, ok maybe "I'm going home" were the first words out of my mouth when the wave hit..:) 

This week was rather rotten...till the end. We tracted at least 20 hours this week and let me tell you this. Tracting is not the most efficient way to work, we figured that out on friday when we realized nothing seemed to be coming from our efforts. Also, note this: people do not even acknowledge the fact that you are dripping wet because you forgot your umbrella. And they also say mean things to you but you just have to keep moving on. One time when we were leaving someone's porch, I ran straight into this massive flower pot! and now I have a realll big bruise on my shin. So, it seamed that we had fell short of our 20 new investigator goal because we only had 3. We were really upset about that and were so confused as to why the spirit would prompt us to set such a high goal if our hard work and faith wasn't enough to reach the goal! We truly did everything in our power to reach this goal. We were feeling really down by Saturday night and sat in our car for a while trying to figure this all out. We decided that we learned so so so much this week that we would have never learned if we hadn't had such a high goal! We learned at least 100 lessons including a lot lot of humility that we didn't even realize we were lacking!! Humility is sneeky like that. So sunday finally came! and I was asked to give a talk on thrusday...people forget that missionaries are busy busy busy and can't say up late to do stuff. and I didn't have time to write it during my personal studies because I had investigators to study for and I couldn't do it during lunch breaks because we have that lovely book of mormon to be reading! ( how is your reading coming?!) So It's sunday morning and we are sitting in ward council and I still don't have a talk prepared. Y'all know how much I love speaking in public so I was only freaking out a little bit. :). Luckily I was the last speaker so I had some solid spirit filled time to gather my thoughts on the Mission of Relief Society. The moment the sacrament was done, i whipped out my ipad, quad and notebook and jotted down a few things. I had put mom's letter in my scriptures for some reason and I ended up sharing the quote from Joesph Feilding Smith! Thanks mom! :) I got to speak for 10 min without even breakin a sweat! It was awesome! I don't even hate speaking that much anymore :) I'm not sure all that I talked about but lots of people came and told me they really liked it so it must have been descent. Then, turns out we got to teach Sunday School too! yay, it was good too. Relief Society was awesome though!! Go read the talk president monson gave in october, i think its called i will not forsake thee and something else?? It's reallll good! 

After Church we had dinner at the Hludzinski's. There house is straight up the model for cheaper by the dozen! It was so awesome (Jenna, even the wayward sister and her boyfriend were there! ) Sister H had us making the waffles and Brother H came over and was talking to us, he asked me where I was from and when I told him I was from Utah, he asks," What ethnicity are you??" Umm, I'm just white, I replied. "Oh...I thought you had to be native american or Eskimo..." I told him I get that a lot. Which is more understandable out here because the native americans back east aren't very dark at all and look quite like me....hmmmmm what a puzzle. 

Thank you for all of your letters and prayers! I printed off spencers email last week for some reason but I found it and read it this week again and I am so glad he shared that scripture in D&C. (122: 7-9??) it was just what I needed to get me through this week! I love all of you more than Chocolate Bacon Bunnies!!! (there's this billboard in our area for them :)) 

LOVE<3 Sister B :) 

3/17/14 | Happy St. PDay!

Hello,

This week was gouda, speaking of cheese, Sister Menlove loves good cheese too. And Hummus and Avacados. Now that I'm talking about her, want to know more about her?! ok here are some fun facts about Sister Menlove: 

She is really fun. and you would all like her. 

That's all I got for now. Oh except for that she is a really really great missionary and we get work done!!!

Funny Story: I opened all of my birthday package from ya'll and was so happy because you guys are really excellent gift givers! Then it was monday (last monday) and we were running around doing p day stuff so I printed off your letters and read them before bed. I was reading moms letter and she apologized that my CTR ring wasn't gold like I wanted it to me. Right then I jumped off my chair and rummaged through the box, now filled with empty wrapping paper and some random chocolates. BUT WHERE WAS THE RING!? Had I thrown it away? was it lost? did something else happen that I can't think of?? Then I saw the tiny box, that I thought was filled with utah truffles...because it was labeled utah truffles. I opened it and there was a tiny goldsmith bag!! yayyy! I thought my dear mother had forgotten that I wanted to be able to choose the right, which we all know you can only do if you have a pretty reminder on your finger. So Thank you thank you mother dear!!! You are simply the best mother! 

Tuesday and Wednesday were pretty normal missionary days. Teaching and finding! yay! 

Thursday we went to Pennypack for Zone Training. It was soo good! We talked about planning and how you need to start with a vision, then set a goal to fit that vision and make plans to achieve that goal and be accountable to the Lord and others as you strive to reach you vision. We did it together as a zone and decided that we wanted a more firm testimony, we said we would get that by reading the book of mormon (goal) and then we planned on how we were going to do it. We made a SMART goal for it, only this time smart stands for Spiritual, Measurable, Attainable, Reasonable, and Time and all Eternity....I think that's what they all were. Anyways we made the goal to read the book of mormon in a month as a zone by reading 18 pages a day! Yay. So that's what we are doing and YOU SHOULD TOO!  You may be thinking, oh I don't have time for that but let me tell you something; fact: missionaries are the busiest people in america...and probably every other country but I wouldn't know about them..anyways you can do it!!! promise. <<Whoa did you see that? A missionary just made you a promise that you can do it...so it must be true. I also promise that you will get many many blessings if you take this challenge!!! :) Hooray for blessings!

Mom: Sister Adams says "Bravo!!!" to my scripture case. <She's in my zone. I actually stalked her mission blog before I came out here...but i'm not going to tell her that any time soon. 

We went on exchanges on friday to saturday with the Sister Training Leaders. It was good, I went to Doylestown PA with Sister Earl and Sister Shaia came here with Sister Menlove. We had a lovely learning time but, as always after an exchange, I am soooo happy to be back with my compa!! I love sister menlove. did I tell you that? 

Before we exchanged, we went to west chester for fun. Just kidding we went for my doctors appointment, but we had fun. I was talking to Dr W about missionary work and turns out, he has some really good friends who are mormon! He used to always ask them what they believe and THEY WOULD NEVER TELL HIM!!! they said they didn't want it to ruin their friendship....kookoo. So then, a member that also goes to him, sister Robinson from the west chester ward, invited him to hear the missionary discussions. So they were coming over once a week, then once a month, then less than that, then nothing. What a puzzle right! So then the conversation got side tracked so i've been doing some investigating because I know for a fact that he was not in the west chester area book, I've read that one too many times. I've been trying to get a hold of sister robinson and missionaries in surrounding areas to see if they know anything about him or where his teaching record is....I'll let you know when I get more on the saga. 

After that we stopped by the mission office in broomall to try and get a new phone becasue ours doesn't get texts...or phone calls. Problem. It was wonderful! All of my favorite people were there! ...ok all of my favorite people in the mission feild were there :) The Jones's and the Smuins and even President Anderson! He was doing interviews and saw us in between, so he came right over and told us how glad he was to see us! "There is sunshine in my soul!" he exclaimed as he went back into his office for more interview. He is really a great man! 

Well, Happy st patricks day! We celebrated by watching it snow while we cleaned and killed some spi-iders with windex (it works!)  Have a happy happy week! Love you all! Remember 100 fun things a day!

Love, Sister Bailey

Birthday Celebrations!!! One with sister menlove in morrisville and another at the Lehmans the night before transferrs! (sorry I look....reall werid in that one):

 Me and Sister Menlove at transfers!:

3/10/14 | Hello Morrisville!

Hiiii! 

I got transferred to Morrisville PA! We live in a little borough called Yardley. Isn't that just smashing?! I love it here! I miss West Chester a lot but I can tell that "I THINK I'M GUNNA LIKE IT HEREEE!" My lovely new companion is Sister Menlove and she is seriously the bee's knees. I think I'll keep her for a while. 

I don't know about you, but I'm feelin' 22. Oh wait, cause I am!!! Yay! I had a happy happy birthday that actually started last tuesday! how fun is that!? Jenna: your candle cameee yayy so funnn! oh I guess that was from errybody right?? so thank you all!!! I got the ring out just last night after burning it like a madman for every second I was in the apt! Mom: I got your boxes! also, I heard you called the mission office to make sure I got them! You silly sneaky mom! But thank you! the Cake is goooooooooooooooooood! even for breakfast. :). 

Transfer meeting was sooo fun! I loveed it! I got to see all my little missionary buddies from the MTC! So, wanna hear how transfer meetings happen here at the PPM? I thought I would share with you because sometimes we tell members how we do them and they think its cool cause it's different from when they served. So, on the day of transfers, all the missionaries getting transfered and their compas come to Broomall. We all go in the gym and all the missionaires staying in their area stand on one side of the gym and all the missionaries getting transferred stand on the other side. Then the AP's stand by the stage and start their slideshow. They call out the area and the missionary staying there and say "your new compaion is.....Bla ble blah!" only they say an elder or sisters name instead of bla ble blah. Then the missionaries called out meet in the middle of the gym and hug and Sister Anderson takes a picture :) It's like a really fun game show!!! When I got called I was sooo happy that I was going with Sister Menlove! She is so great and nice and happy and lovely and normal and good missionary! yay! We are gunna get some work done out here in Morrisville! 

My Birthday was lovely too! We started the day off with a good ol' P.E.C. Then normal church stuff. The ward was oh so nice!!! They found out it was my birthday so they gave me chocolate and sang to me in sunday school. Awkward but nice :). Then we went to a members house for this family history thing and pancakes! Guess what! I found an ancestor in the 1600's that was born in Buck PA! That's where i'm serving! Buck county PA! So i'll find his name again and find his grave on P Day and it will be reallllll fun! Sister M and I are determined to find a common ancestor. We love family search! Then we taught some really awesome people, Had ward coordination with the WML and went home for dinner. Guess what we made for dinner: Beto's breakfast burritos! YUM! I even put candles in it! And we watched Jonny Lingo and opened my presents :). good good day! oh my family, that cat card! I died! also music box. I'm totally going to use it as a finding tool! picture this: me and sister menlove. Skipping down the street, the sun is setting and the fireflies are coming out. She's jammin on her harmonica and i'm just playing that music box like its going out of style! The people will just follow us to the font. like the piper man and the rats. perfect. 

Today we went to King of Prussia again for a really fun time! Got my IV and then we played at the biggest mall in PA or something. Real fun. Sister Heaps took us (i love her!) We ate at the Cheesecake factory and guess what i had.....tamale cakes!!!!! yummmmmmmmmm. I think the best thing about being on a mission and having a birthday, is that your birthday dosn't end the next day to make way for someone elses birthday! It can start a week early and end....whenever you want it to! Mine's still going just so y'all know :). Dad, you have permission to do the same. 

Well fam. sorry for the lack of  missionary stories in this letter....It's been a crazy week and I don't remember a whole lot of peoples names to tell you about. ha I'll learn them all and tell you about them later. :) LOVE YOU!!! happy birthday dad! and Tahnks for all the birthday wishes and prayers :)

3/2/14 | Bye Bye WC

I think the worst best part of missions is getting transferred, only because after serving in a place for so long, it really feels like home. The ward feels like your family and so on. So it's like packing up and leaving for the MTC all over again! minus the MTC part. Enough saddness, I think the people I'm leaving behind here have enough saddness for everyone involved so why bother being sad...especially when I have facebook to keep in touch with them :).

Yesterday, we ran into a pickle before church. Bishop called us around 10:30 and told us that we had another Nor'easter coming in so they wanted to postpone O___a's baptism again to next week. I asked him if we could do it before church. He said we might be able to but probably not because we would have to start filling the font like right that second. "oh perfect, we're at the church right now bishop!" haha so we ran to the font and got it started! A little while later, after we had made ALL of the arrangements with everyone involved with the baptism, bishop arrived at the church and had us come into his office "I have an idea sisters!" We all sat down in his office and he said, "What do you think about doing the baptism duringSunday School hour?" perrrfeccct bishop! Then we swiftly excused ourselves to go re-make all of those calls :) 1 o clock rolls around and everything was set in order, O___a came in the most beautiful all white African wrap (i'll send pictures next week, forgot my card reader) So we snapped a few pictures with her and sat down for sacrament meeting. We had the most wonderful meeting!!! Jim was there and so was K___a! :) and K___e got to bless the sacrament!! It was so special!! Everyone was sad when I bore my testimony because they realized that I was being transferred. After the meeting sister hutchinson called me over because guess who was there! Chris Morris's Mom and Wife. Crayyzeee, So I got to talk to them for a little bit, they are so sweet! They told me they were texting mom and Jenna about me :) Then maybe Sister Morris pulled up Jenna's instagram and showed me the latest Daily Bailey--I felt a little guilty for looking at instagram but I wasn't going to be rude and walk away!! haha Bailey is just the cutest thing and the Morris' loveee her! Then O___a was baptized :) it was so special. K___e gave a talk on baptism and K___a gave a talk on the Holy Ghost. It was so incredible to have one of our recent converts and a newly reactivated members speak at it. Elder Mask baptized her, all went well and O___a is just a beautiful soul! In relief society the lesson was on becoming more holy. It was based on a book written by elder nelson's wife...I don't remember what it is called, look it up and read it though!! The point of the lesson was that we can all work to become more holy, ask yourself "what would a holy woman/man do?" throughout your day and you will become more holy! Simple as that! We didn't have a dinner apt so we went home after all of our meetings and scrapped up some breakfast for dinner style dinner...it wasn't too scrumptious because we had to improvise, but it made us feel like real missionaries that don't get fed a lot! 

So many miracles yesterday, Sister Pickett and I were talking about how everything that happened yesterday, encompassed everything a missionary hopes will happen on their mission. :)

We've been meeting with Z___ again and he is so ready to be baptized!!! We taught him Saturday night, sunday night, this morning (even though it was p day!) and we have another appointment with him tomorrow morning :) Both he and K___a are really  worried they wont like the new sister so we told them we could meet with them as much as possible before I go :). I'm not complaining about it! He is set and ready to be baptized on March 16th. Hopefully I will be close enough to come back to it. The rule is it has to be within the 2 weeks after transfers so it will just be up to my zone leaders on if I can leave the area.

On Tuesday, Sister Albadine loaded us and K___e up into her Subaru to haul us into the city to see the temple site.  It was so wonderful! K____e has the strongest testimony! I love him! He told the Carr's (The couple overseeing the temple construction) his whole story and sister carr was almost in tears, that reminds me, i'll have to tell you his story one of these days, it's incredible!!! or maybe i'll just tell you in person when I get home :) Our Sister Training Leaders met up with us and we started our exchange. Sister Stephenson went home to WC with Sister Pickett and I stayed in Center City with Sister Beames! It was so fun! I've always wanted to serve in Center City so if that was the only day I get to, I'll take it cause it was a grand adventure! We taught lots of lessons and had ward coordination with the other missionaries in her ward and their ward mission leader. It was really cool to see how other wards work with the missionaries.

Wednesday, I was still in Center City, we visited a less active woman in a nursing home and then we went back to the temple sight to have lunch with Brother and Sister Carr. They are the nicest, they take missionaries out to lunch all the time. Then we came back to west chester and had accountability with the STLs. It was really good, I love them and I think they like us too because Sister Beames was laughing pretty hard she started crying a few times during it. :)

K___e went to the temple to do baptisms on saturday with the ward! So special, he was so excited he called us the moment he got home and told us all about it. I had him bring my old camera with him to the temple so he could have pictures :). I can't wait for all of you to meet K___e, he is so special.

Well, West Chester has been too good to me. Pray for everyone I am leaving behind, I worry about some of them. But I know they are in good hands with Sister Pickett :). Wish me luck this week! Lets all cross our fingers that this last IV (it was hot pink today) doesn't make me as sloopy as last time :) That wouldn't be a great start with a new compa in a new area. Thank you for all of your prayers and support! I love you all and wish I could write you 100 more miracles that happened this week!

Love,

Sister Bailey

PS I am still the happiest missionary because guess what, I have the best cousin in the world named Brook Brian: Thanks 100 for the fun box of feel better :) you are soooo nice and I love you! Also I had Shake Shack again :) and my Doctor is the coolest person I have ever met.